He's My Brother
by Persephone Price
Summary: A series of snapshots from Sam and Dean's lives.
1. August, 2001 - Omaha, NE

**A/N: Hey everyone! So, this is my Sam & Dean-centric series of one-shots. The title comes from the Hollies' song 'He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother.' Each chapter will probably vary length, but this one is a bit short. I hope you all enjoy it nevertheless! The chapters aren't going to be related to each other, unless I specify otherwise.**

**Disclaimer: Believe it or not, I don't own Supernatural.**

**Spoilers: None**

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><p><em>Omaha, Nebraska<em>

_August, 2001_

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><p>After he and Sam left Truman High School in Fairfax, Indiana, Dean never set foot in a school again – at least not as a student.<p>

It was bizarre, how fluidly the whole thing happened. There was no discussion, no parental interference or outrage, no lecture, no door-slamming or grandiose display of teenage rebellion. He just… stopped going.

Dean had considered dropping out of school for years – they don't teach you how to hunt a werewolf in school, they don't teach you how to do anything he would ever need to know in school. Who cares what the derivative of 2x^2 is when people are dying?

The only reason he had continued to go was because of Sammy. His brother knew how to fight, but he was small and sensitive; anyone who could sense weakness could sense that that little twerp had a bleeding heart. He might as well have had a bull's-eye painted on his back.

Of course, it was Dean's responsibility to protect him, and so he had gone to school – he'd nearly _finished _school.

But when Dad finished the hunt in Indiana and they moved on to gank a wraith in Phoenix, Sam started up classes and Dean never did. Sam had hit a growth spurt over winter break and didn't really need him anymore, and he was vital and strong and eighteen years old and ready to fully immerse himself in the family business.

Dad agreed.

So, with only one semester of education left to obtain his degree, in typical Dean Winchester-fashion, he quit.

He was never even good at school, anyway. Sammy got the brains, he got the brawn. That's just the way it was. Sure, maybe he was decent at crunching numbers and he was no slob when it came to home ec., but Sam was the one with a real gift. That kid could write. He was going places – everyone could see it. Dean was just his bonafide bodyguard.

Nobody cared that Dean dropped out of high school. Not the teachers, not his own family. No one even mentioned that it happened; it was as natural as the changing seasons, it was _expected_.

That was fine, though – the monsters didn't care either, so neither did Dean. He already had all the skills he could ever need. Yeah, maybe he was shit with Shakespeare, but he could sure as hell read a roadmap, and the phrases on highway markers were the only ones he would ever need to understand. What could a slip of paper possibly mean to him when his time could be better spent saving people?

Sam was different. Those teachers Dean never gave half a rat's ass about? Sam listened to them. That slip of paper meant a hellova lot to Sam. It meant _everything_ to Sam. It meant more than his own family.

Like he always said – Sam was going places. Sam _is_ going places.

Like right now. Sam's stuffing his shit into an army-surplus duffel bag.

From the doorway, Dean begs, "Sam, please…"

"No," he bites. "No. You know I can't stay here. I can have a _life_, Dean, a real one."

As though Dean can't. As though none of them ever can except for him. As though this isn't a real life – if it's not real, what is it? Fake? Dean's face must contort in some way, because upon seeing it he amends, "You know what I mean." There's a pause, during which time Sam's indeterminately colored eyes search his. "Come with me," he suggests finally.

Dean blows out a sharp breath from his lungs, turning his eyes up to the water-stained ceiling. "You know I can't," he tells him flatly.

Sam, looking crestfallen, replies, "Yeah. I know."

"Don't go, Sammy," Dean tries again. "Don't go. This family is all we have, all we have _ever_ had."

"I know," he says, laughing bitterly, "I know! That's exactly why I've gotta get out! Can't you see how messed up this is, Dean?"

Of course he can. Of course he fucking can.

But it's not their life that's messed up – it's Sam. He just wants to shake him, shake him until his teeth rattle in his skull and he understands. For someone so smart, he's frustratingly stupid. If there were a Winchester family handbook, it would only have one line written in it: stick together. It's so simple, it's so, so simple. Sam can recognize Iambic Pentameter in a heartbeat. Sam knows what words like 'loquacious' mean. So why the _hell _doesn't he understand this?

Sam is supposed to know how to read between the lines. He's supposed to understand subtext.

He's supposed to know that when Dad says, _If you walk out that door, don't you ever come back_, he really means, _I love you, son, and I can't lose you too. Please don't go._

If Dean can understand it, Sam sure as hell should.

"Fine. Go," Dean shouts raggedly, beckoning wildly to the ramshackle front door. "Don't let us hold you back any longer."

Sam doesn't understand the subtext in this, either.

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><p><strong>AN: Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!**


	2. November, 2014 - New Canaan, CT

**A/N: Yeah, I don't know. I noticed Dean's started doing this and then this happened. Thanks ImpalaLove for reviewing the last chapter!**

**Spoilers: Season 10**

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><p><em>New Canaan, Connecticut<em>

_November, 2014_

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><p>He knows it has something to do with the First Blade, he just isn't sure what it means.<p>

He never does it around Sam. Sammy already reads far too much into his every action, no matter how insignificant, and he doesn't want to give him even more fodder for skepticism. No, he only does it when he's alone.

Because the weight of everything feels wrong in his hands, now. Anything can be made into a weapon – Dean should know – but he has become attached to one very particular one. And when adrenaline pumps through his veins his hand searches it out, but it's always, _always _met with a cheap imitation.

Sometimes, it's met with nothing at all. When he wakes up in the middle of the night thrashing, grasping fistfuls of dead, empty air, he knows his body is reaching for it on its own accord. His blood cries for it, pounding like a jackhammer in his temples.

It's almost fitting that the Blade is made of animal bone, because surely his own skeleton became fused with it. It was an extension of his own body, as natural as any appendage he'd been born with. And without it, now, he feels as though something has been… severed.

So – as a demon – when he picked up that hammer, it felt wrong, and – as a human – when he picked up that wrench, it still felt wrong. He'd tested them both in his hand, flexing his fingers around the hilts, longing for something different. The cold metal froze a trail of ice through his veins, aggravating that mark, angering it, making it pulsate hotly to remind him it's still there, it's still _part of him_, and he's still branded.

But what Sam doesn't see, he can't analyze, and what he can't analyze, he can't bitch about. Dean internalizes his suspicions, his fears, because it's what he always does, and maybe, in doing so now, he can feel a bit more like himself and scrub away at whatever vile residue was left behind inside him.

So when Sam complains about those extra shots, he could almost laugh – _You have no idea_, he thinks, knuckles tightening around the steering wheel to fill a void that can't be filled. Again, the Mark throbs, smoldering just beneath his skin.

_You have no idea._

_I miss it._


	3. July, 1999 - Unknown, OK

**A/N: This is just a random drabble. Thanks so much to ImpalaLove and moira4eku for reviewing!**

**Spoilers: None**

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><p><em>Unknown, Oklahoma<em>

_July, 1999_

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><p>There's dust from the road in his nose, and in his eyes.<p>

He looks up, trying to see the sky, trying to see…

If it's dark or light.

It's light, for now, the sun swollen and orange, like a ripe fruit ready to be plucked from the horizon. It's bleeding a trail of pink and purple as it sinks, heavy, falling, making room for its shier sister, the moon.

The dust stings. He tries to wipe it away with the back of his hand, but the pain only intensifies. His eyes grow watery and he wipes harder, makes it even worse.

His hand comes away dirty, streaked.

He could move out of the road, he supposes, but where's the point in that?

Right now, this road is the only path in his life, and the vision of it stretching onwards is the only thing promising him a future.

He walks dead-center, kicking up gravel and that damned, wafting powder. He can feel it now in all his pores, like it's claiming him.

_Are you crazy, Sammy? Walkin' in the middle of the road? You're gonna get yourself killed_, some small voice nags.

He shakes his head; there are no cars, and if there were he has faith they wouldn't hit him. He's hard to miss.

He must be quite the sight, really. Picturesque. A runaway teen treading confidently into the sunset, backpack slung over his shoulder and nothing but a couple of crumpled dollar-bills shoved into his denim pockets.

He's sure someone'll come after him at some point, once Dad gets his head out of his ass and Dean gets his head out of Susie Parson's-

No. Gross.

That's such a Dean thing to think, he worries. Maybe he'll never be rid of them, not even now. Maybe they'll speak to him through his own, seditious brain cells.

He snorts to himself. Figures. He can't even enjoy this moment of solitude without the echo of his brother's ridiculous, forcedly-gruff voice filling his head, a doing an imitation of their dad he'll never fully understand.

He tries to focus on another sound, any other sound, but his thoughts always make him go deaf.

So he decides to blight another one of his senses; he looks again at the sun, its vanishing-act unfolding right before his very eyes. The light only burns half as much as the dust.

When it becomes unbearable, he turns his speckled gaze away, in the direction of some graffiti on a '25 MPH' road marker. Red on white. As his eyesight struggles to normalize, the words come into focus:

_Where are you going, Sam?_

Sam looks at the moon.


	4. Cold Oak, SD - Pontiac, IL

**A/N: Just experimenting. Never done this POV before.**

**Spoilers: Season 2, Season 3**

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><p><em>You died.<em>

I chanted useless lies and platitudes like '_You're gonna be all right, you're gonna be just fine_,' but you just… died.

Right on your knees, right in front of me. I saw it. I saw your face relax, your injury too grave for pain. I saw your eyes dim, I saw them turn from hazel to milky brown. I saw a thin line of blood slither down your chin, while a surge of it gushed from your back. I felt it on my hands, on my skin…

I've scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed, but…

You had the face of a boy, but the body of a man. That face in my hands, in my brain, behind my eyes when I close them…

And then that too-big body on a twin-sized mattress in an empty house. No, not just empty – destroyed, ravaged, moldering. Just like my insides, just like my heart – or lack thereof, now. Someone came in and smashed everything up, hadn't even left a note, hadn't even left a name. Everything was just broken, with no explanation and no one to blame.

What was his name? How could he ruin us like this? He doesn't even know us. We're not bad people, we don't deserve this.

But I'm not angry. I don't want revenge, because the only thing that matters to me is lying five feet away on a lumpy heap of springs and soiled fabric.

I carried you out of our dead father's car, cradled you in my arms like I hadn't since I carried you out of our burning home. I laid you down carefully on that revolting mattress like you could break, like you weren't already broken.

I feel just as betrayed as you should, with that knife jutting out of your spinal cord. How could anyone do this to me, how could anyone take so much? When does it end?

Whoever created the concept of _fairness _or _justice _and whatever other bullshit concepts help them sleep at night ruined everything before it even began. But I never resented them for it, because whenever I saw something I wanted but couldn't have, I looked in the backseat and saw I had something they never would.

I looked in the backseat on the way over. Your skin was gray and your body was limp, head lolling against the leather, hair still pasted to the dried sweat on your brow. It's really something, seeing sweat on a corpse. It's like a wilted flower retaining its color; it's just unnatural.

Drove on the opposite side of the double yellow line for a while, too. No cars came by, unfortunately. I wouldn't have seen them if they did, with what a mess I am, with the tears burning like acid in my eyes. But I'm still alive, so this has gotta be how it went. God decided to punish me further for my unknown crime. Because of course – why wouldn't he?

It's been three days. Your limbs are stiff and your flesh is colorless, bleached by death. But your face is the same, just darker around the eyes and lips.

Bobby says you're gonna start to smell, soon.

I wouldn't know, since I haven't smelled anything but salt for three days straight. I'm disgusted with myself in every single way I can think of.

Like I said, you look the same and totally different all at once, and every time I look at you bile rises in my throat. I've stopped retching because I've stopped eating, because everything I put in my mouth tastes like blood and vomit and ash and...

Even the whiskey. Even the barrel of-

I'm doing this for myself, Sam. I know what gunpowder tastes like now, just like I know it's not what you would want, just like I know _this _is not what you would want. But I'm doing this to survive. We're survivors, we Winchesters. Aren't we? It may not seem like it, but why put us through so much if we weren't meant to endure it? No – we're survivors. That's all I can accept, that's the only reality I can bear to live in – one in which we overcome this, at any cost, at _all _costs.

And this is how we have to survive.

.

.

.

.

.

_You were dead._

And I couldn't move from the wall.

I heard your screams, I still hear them.

And I did _nothing_ – after everything you've done for me, everything you've sacrificed, I did _nothing_.

There was blood all over the floor. Where were we, even? Some house? Somewhere nice?

I slipped in your blood once I finally got down from that wall, slipped on my way over to you. Fell to my knees. Assessed the damage, like Dad always taught us.

Your guts were spilling out of you.

By now I've seen some shit, but I'm not sure if your corpse was more or less upsetting than all the others. On one hand, you're _Dean, _my brother, and nothing about you could ever be disgusting, but on the other you're _Dean_, my brother, and everything about seeing you like this makes me want to puke _my_ guts out.

You would've liked that, that 'guts' connection. You could always make the best of a bad situation.

I can't.

I dragged you out of the house, too distraught to carry you like I should have. You're not even that heavy.

There was blood all over the Impala too, but don't worry, I cleaned it.

I didn't know where to go, so I went to Bobby's.

I cleaned you up there, in the tub we used to use as kids. Scrubbed you til your rubbery skin was raw, put your intestines back inside and sewed you up like some kind of sobbing surgeon. The stitches are a total mess. You'd make fun of them.

Closing your eyes was the worst part. I found myself wishing you could have just died with your eyes closed, as one last favor to me. How fucked up is that?

But I managed it. After all the major stuff was done – all the (many) patches of flesh reunited – I took a damp washcloth and wiped your face. I always thought of you as the older brother, but it was only then that I realized just how young you really were. Too young. Way too young, Dean.

Why'd you have to go and do this, huh? Why'd you have to do this? It's because of me – because of me, you're dead, and I'll never forgive you for it. Never. How could you put this on me? How could you make me live with this?

I didn't leave you, not for a long time. We put you… We put you on that bed you used to sleep in, next to the window, with the other one right next to it – mine. I slept in the room with you that night, still covered in your blood while you lay immaculate and lifeless in the bed not three feet over.

_It ain't right,_ Bobby told me, and yeah, maybe it wasn't, but shit when has something being right ever mattered?

When I woke up, for a second I thought… I thought maybe it had been a – a dream, a _nightmare_…

But no.

You were there, real, dead.

Bobby said we had to burn you, like Dad, like everyone else.

I said no.

"No, Bobby, fucking no!" I screamed, tears racing down my cheeks, sticky and hot and wholly unwelcome. "I'm not burning him, I'm not! It's _Dean_!" Your name tasted like a prayer, but every time I said it, it felt like a curse. I said it to him like it meant something, like it meant something to anyone other than me.

Was it a knee-jerk reaction? Probably. But I… I just couldn't. The thought of destroying your body, the only piece I had left of you, of _anyone_-

I couldn't.

Bobby just shook his head, knowing it was useless to try to dissuade me.

I sped to Pontiac, Illinois. I dug a ditch as deep as I could, to keep the elements from getting to you. I dug and dug and dug until the dirt started to obscure your stain on me.

I placed you in gently, I stood in that hole with you. I considered entombing myself, too.

But I didn't.

And now you're here, but you were _dead_, and I feel nothing but shame because this means that someone else came through for you when I didn't.


	5. Randolph, NY - Lebanon, KS

**A/N: Thank you so so so so much to Charloes Angels, ImpalaLove, and helinahandcart for reviewing! Get pumped for episode 10 tonight! Since you guys didn't seem to mind the angst or the unconventional layout, here's take 2...**

**Spoilers: Season 9**

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><p>Somewhere, between all the wires and monitors and heartless blips, there must be meaning. He searches for it through clouded eyes, searches for it with a clouded mind.<p>

After everything, he asks himself, _How can you still search?_

IVs and tubes are hooked up to his brother's body, twisted and tangled like a failed marionette's strings. Controlling his heart, his lungs, his blood, but not his fate. They can't bring him to life, can't make him act how he's supposed to. They can't reel Dean out of this pit of abject misery, can't break the haze of wrong and wronger.

But he searches. He searches because he's searched before, because he's found salvation more than once.

The words in his brain don't match the ones falling from his lips.

_Just one more time, _he pleads, _just one more time._

Dean is tainted, stained, but, despite striving and shamming his entire life to be otherwise, not faithless. He knows he doesn't deserve this, knows that redemption is as far beyond him as it can possibly be. He knows he turns to evil all the time (_every _time), just as he knows it is still his contingency plan.

He doesn't deserve this, but Sam does. Sam's not ruined, not like he is. Sam wouldn't want another demon-deal. Sam is good.

_Don't do it for me._

He's in a chapel, and he's a sinner. He's praying for something he doesn't have a right to. The dark-spot on his soul is real, and there is no penance that will scrub it away. He can feel it there, burning, close to his heart.

Dean knows all these things. He knows. And still, he's on his knees, hands folded and sweaty.

A tear slides down his cheek and he wants to punch something until it bleeds, to let the stain grow until it consumes him entirely. Maybe he would. Maybe he will.

Light streams in from the ceiling. He sees he's not alone. There's an old lady two feet to his left, a young boy five pews in front of him. They're all praying too, praying like he is. What makes him more worthy? What makes Sam more worthy?

They're not. He isn't. But –

_Just one last miracle._

And he knows, guiltily, that his voice is the loudest one in the chapel.

.

.

.

.

.

Sam's heart is heavy and purposeless, like a paperweight. It sinks through his body, plummeting, until it leaves him altogether. It forsakes its inhospitable home because it can't stand to live there anymore.

Sam's soul wishes it could follow.

And then he feels indescribably light, as though he might float away – float right on up to Heaven, even though he knows he ought to be sinking down to Hell along with his paperweight heart.

Something anchors him to earth, though. Something lodged between the stench of blood and the sound of his own sobbing. It keeps him there, keeps him present. Weighing in his arms.

How many times can he be expected to do this? How many times can he carry –

The lightness makes him dizzy, makes him long for the counterbalance of his grief-burdened heart. He needs it. He needs the equilibrium. He needs it so he can see clearly, so he can make out his brother's features on the purple, bloated face of the corpse in front of him.

Because now there's just –

There's the blood, and the swelling.

There's the mouth that just spoke, and the stillness.

There's him…

And there's nothing.

He is alone.

He is alone in the car, alone in the bunker.

He has been alone, before. He has felt alone since he learned the word. The feeling and being have never intersected before, though, not like this.

After the first time there was Bobby, and now there's just –

No Bobby, no one.

Just whiskey, a burning in his stomach that at least makes him feel something more than nothing.

And a trove of supernatural artifacts. He has the tools to make this right. He has the know-how to bring his brother back. He has the will to go the distance, the will he lacked before.

Because there's no right and wrong anymore, no moral and immoral. There's only a line that's been crossed so many times it's become trampled, indistinguishable. He couldn't draw it again, even if he wanted to. It doesn't exist.

_Do you think he would want this?_

They've stopped asking themselves these questions.

Sam is grasping at matches, hands trembling. His vision is blurred for a myriad of reasons, and the searing in throat stems from the same varied sources. He is selling his soul before he even sparks the flame.

That line, that line is gone, a shadow, a dream…

All he understands is a bloodline, all he understands is Dean. And Dean is gone too_, _and he's_ not coming back unless you do something_.

Circumstance thwarts him, not his conviction. If he could, he would, a thousand times yes. He would do anything, everything, everything he said he would never. But he doesn't even have the choice.

It hurts so much, and he just wants it to be over, and –

_SAMMY LET ME GO_

If he lets him go, he'll float away.


	6. May, 2015 - Lebanon, KS (1)

**A/N: Thank you so much to ImpalaLove and Guest for reviewing the last chapter! You guys are awesome :) Sorry for the angst, as always.**

**Spoilers: 10x21**

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><p><em>Lebanon, Kansas<em>

_May, 2015_

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><p>There's a bloody body in the tub, eyes wide open. There's a severed arm hanging from a chain back in the bunker. It's all unraveling.<p>

Red blots the wall like vibrant graffiti, not yet the muddy, brownish color it turns when it dries. A fresh kill. A sight he knows well, now, a scent he recognizes.

As Sam retches into that trashcan in the presence of his newest, biblically catastrophic misstep, Dean sinks onto the blood-slick tiles. He feels his jeans absorb the blood – whose, it's not clear – and his pants go tacky. The smell of copper is overwhelming, and he has to put his head in his hands because the smell is _pleasant_, and the Mark is throbbing.

"_She loves you, Dean – we all do."_

That proclamation had hit Dean like a sucker punch, and he's sure it showed on his face. It's an unspoken rule that the Winchesters don't say that word, don't tell each other they _looove_ them. They just don't. Never have. Sammy said it once when he was three – _"I wuv you, Dean"_ – and he'd corrected him right away.

Dean slipped up only once, nearly ten years ago. He broke the rule, whispered that mawkish phrase into his baby brother's corpse, and felt immediately mortified – _weak_. As though he could be any reduced to anything less than what he already was.

Sam hadn't said it outright just now, but he might as well have. And he realizes: Sam thinks he's talking to a corpse, too.

That's why she's dead, as smashed up as that laptop on the floor. That's why everyone around him dies, including Sam, including Castiel. That's the root of it. It doesn't matter if they say it or not – what matters is whether it's true, and it had been true for Charlie. It's simple. It's mathematical: everyone who loves him dies. And oh-how-melodramatic it sounds, but also so _true._ He has been marked long before this. Maybe even forever. He lived but four years in blissful ignorance before his curse was revealed.

He knows, now, what he must do. What he should have done a long time ago.

And suddenly John Winchester is talking: _You do what you have to, Dean. You do the good and honest thing and end it before your baby brother has to. You owe him that, at least. You put an end to this._

_I know, I know_, he thinks. He knows. He could do it. He always thought he could. It's not like he's never stared down the barrel of a gun before, never written a suicide note.

_You do what you have to._

He knows John would never condone this, but somehow the worst, darkest part of him speaks in his father's voice. He tries not to read too much into this, because self-psychoanalysis is something he generally tries to avoid. They say all behavior his rooted in childhood experiences, right? Well, that makes a hellova lot of sense. You don't need to be a shrink to predict that Dean's blood-soaked childhood would lead _right here_, to this war-torn motel room.

Sam sobs suddenly, "This is all my fault," and Dean looks up from his hands.

His eyes are bright when they meet his brother's, and his face is expressionless, devoid of any judgment. He looks a new man.

Sam, already distraught, becomes unnerved because he has steeled himself for a shouting match. He expected a _'Of course it is, you should have listened to me,' _or a _'Look what you've done.'_

What he gets instead is, "No, it's not. It's mine."

Dean stands, flexes his legs. His pants are stiff with clotted blood. There's a perfect handprint in the mess on the floor, and a matching coat on his right palm. He wipes it on this thigh.

Sam balks at him and looks as though he wants to weep. Tears are swimming in his chocolate-brown eyes, unshed, and he grits his teeth. "How can you say that? _How can you say that?_" he demands.

Head bowed, he gives him a non-answer. "I should've let Cain kill me."

And then Dean leaves. Leaves Sam alone, alone in a room that reeks of blood and vomit and burnt electronics and failure.

And Sam cries over a corpse.

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><p><strong>AN: I'm sorry!**


	7. May, 2015 - Lebanon, KS (2)

**A/N: Thank you so much to ImpalaLove for reviewing the last chapter! I'm warning y'all... This one is dark, even for me. This is a continuation of the last chapter.**

**Spoilers: 10x21**

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><p><em>Lebanon, Kansas<em>

_May, 2015_

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><p>Dean tries not to look at his reflection anymore, tries not to see the man the monster masquerades as on a daily basis. But right now he stands over the sink, washes Charlie's rusty blood off of his hands and stares at the mirror as the water runs red.<p>

There are lines creasing his face, bags under his eyes, but he still recognizes himself. People say, _'I don't even know who I am anymore,'_ and look at their reflections like they're somehow different, like they've been physically altered, like it's just so obvious what's wrong with them. Smash the mirror. Shatter the image because you can't bear to look at it anymore. '_Who am I?' _they'll cry to the heavens.

But the movie script was off on this one; it's just not the case. He looks the same. He's been called pretty-boy more times than he can count and, to be fair, he does see something incredibly punchable in his cleft chin and model-lush lips. He's always had a 'you're-stuck-with-me' kind of face. Now more than ever. He's older, sure, but the same. And it's almost worse this way, because one part doesn't match the other.

He bows his head over the tap and scrubs frigid water into his skin, like he might wash away the illusion. When he lifts his face his skin is numb and feels stretched too-tightly over his skull, but he is visibly unchanged. His eyes, maybe, are hollow, but that's it.

Maybe he's missing the point. Maybe the sameness is supposed to remind of who he is, who he was. He was good once, wasn't he?

He's flip-flopped between each extreme – the vessel of God's greatest warrior, and God's most abhorrent mortal creation.

He wonders briefly which dismal fate was better, but attempting to choose between the two is fucking exhausting. What's right? What's wrong? How can he know? His conscience, that little rig float dangling somewhere in his chest, has been abused out of existence, swallowed up in the tumult. Left is right, right is wrong, and he has lost all direction. Moral compass? Yeah fucking right. Like he should be so lucky. That was taken away, too.

And it makes him angry. He's been toyed with his whole life, amounted to nothing more than a goddamn puppet. His choices brought him here, yes, but he didn't bring himself into this world, didn't throw himself into these circumstances. He never wanted to be here. He never wanted to be _this_.

Some of the lore says the Mark of Cain is a huge, hideous scar, a mark across the forehead. He wishes it were true. He wishes he were deformed. _Stay away from me_, it would warn. Because why else won't they? Stay away? He pushes and pushes and pushes, and no one ever listens.

And it makes him angry, it does. But he's also so, so tired.

He turns around, away from the mirror. Turns his back on himself. There's a gun on his bed, in a room filled with guns. There's a black book on his dresser, a Bible. It's there strictly for research purposes. That's the story, anyway, the story they all tell.

His eyes flit back to the gun.

The Bible would say this is wrong, but it doesn't feel that way. Who is he to know the difference, after all?

_I didn't ask for this,_ he tells the book. _You pushed me to it. _

Push push push. All he does is push, be pushed, and it does no good.

He's ready to feel something different. And when he looks at that Beretta, he does.

He feels a pull.

He tried. He tried so fucking hard, he tried harder than anyone else would have. He _tried. _And in trying, he turned his brother into a monster too. He should be mad at Sam, shouldn't he? Shouldn't he? Why isn't he? He just wants to bring this endless line of damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't decision making to a screeching halt.

Because Charlie's death is Sam's fault, it really is. But it's only Sam's fault because Dean put him in the position in the first place. So, it's Dean's fault. That's the infallible Winchester logic.

There's a squeak and a slam in the other room: Sam's back.

. . .

Sam bursts into the room in a flurry, no preamble, no decorum, brain abuzz because he knows immediately that something is wrong-er than usual. It's as though he can read Dean's thoughts.

Maybe he can. But only because he's having the exact same ones.

His eyes find Dean's, then the gun, then Dean's. He goes slack-jawed, like he hadn't planned this far ahead, like he thought he was going to walk in on something other than his brother standing at the sink.

The bunker is suddenly unbearably quiet and astoundingly cold; an icy chill shoots through Sam's spine at the look in Dean's eyes, and the hairs at the back of his neck bristle. If he didn't know any better, he would think there was a ghost in the room with them.

Maybe it's Dean's ghost, because what he sees is something of the sort – his brother has let go. Checked out, just like that. Flip switched to _off_. _Sorry, you've reached Dean Winchester, he's no longer here._

He remembers when Dean died the first time, when he called his phone over and over again just to hear his voicemail, just to hear his voice.

"There something you wanna say?" Dean prods finally.

"I know what you're thinking, Dean," he says all in a rush.

One eyebrow quirks, like they didn't just discover one of their closest friends dead in a bathtub, like some new innocent person didn't just sacrifice themselves for their sorry asses. "Do you?"

He stares down the gun pointedly. "I do," he says at length.

Dean looks sheepish, a kind of 'you-caught-me-watching-porn' kind of sheepish and _not_ a 'I'm-contemplating-suicide' kind of sheepish. Sam had expected guilt, but his brother is unapologetic – he's just embarrassed to be called out on it, to have his inner musings out in the open for them both to verbally dissect.

Sam's phone vibrates in his pocket, loudly. They both ignore it.

Dean sighs, rubs the space between his eyes. "Don't you ever wonder?"

"Wonder what?"

"What it would be like if we didn't have to do this anymore."

Sam cocks his head to the side, scanning his brother's face like a Xerox machine. "No," he says, like it isn't all he ever thinks about.

Dean glares at him, challenging: _Lie to me one more time. See what happens_.

"Okay," he confesses immediately. Sam's not up to snuff to play this game with him right now. He will lose. "Yes, of course."

The other sucks his teeth and nods, like they actually agree on something for once. His neck is bent towards the floor, but his gaze jumps around the room sporadically, settling on anything but Sam.

The gun on the bed keeps catching Sam's eye – the Bible keeps catching Dean's.

"Whaddyou wanna do?" Sam asks finally. "Make a suicide pact?" He expels one short, breathless laugh from his lungs, like it's just so fucking funny. It comes out deranged.

Dean looks at him then, snaps his eyes to him, and Sam is filled with grief. A sort of hot, tingling grief that completely overshadows his guilt over Charlie, that fills him to the brim with panic. He's actually considering it, thinks it's a viable option. They've been following one another to their graves for most of their lives – why stop now? It might be easier, right? If they just did it together?

Sam thinks he might be sick again. Bile percolates in his stomach.

Because he's considering it, too. Not because he wants to die, but because he knows Dean could never go through with it, could never let him die. And how completely selfish it is, but he would do _anything_, even exploit Dean's worst fear. He would make Dean live in agony rather than live without him. Dean would kill more people. Sam would clean up his messes. Their own little happily ever after. And that's when he realizes: he would sacrifice all the world if it meant he could save his brother. There's something wrong with that.

And saving him is the same as keeping him alive, right?

His phone buzzes again.

"What have we done?" Dean wonders absently, like he is not one critical component of the _'we_._' _Like he is removed. Like he will be. Like he can ever be. There's a _'to each other' _hiding somewhere at the end of his sentence.

"You kill yourself-"

"No, Sam, stop it," he curbs him urgently, re-entering the conversation, anticipating his next words. He is very animated all at once, like he's been shocked.

Sam presses on, firm and unfaltering: "You kill yourself, Dean, and I will _follow you_ to Hell."

Dean either laughs or sobs – he can't tell which. "We've always known it might have to come to this," he grinds out, like it's some consolation. He looks abruptly up at the ceiling, trying to keep his unshed tears at bay.

"No. No, we didn- it _doesn't._"

"I'm… I'm a liability, Sam. This has to end."

"No, you're not. Stop." His lungs feel heavy inside his ribcage and it's getting harder and harder to breath properly, but his heart is racing to kill him first. He can hear his blood pounding in his ears, _da-dump-da-dump-da-dump_. It's all too much.

"I'm doing this for you, for everyone."

"Stop! You're not doing anything!" he cries suddenly. "You're not! Just shut up, okay? Just shut the fuck up. You're not doing anything. So help me God, I will lock you up if I have to. Don't you dare leave me, Dean. Don't you dare even think about it."

"Do you have _any _idea what it felt like to have you – to have _all of you _– lie to my face like that? I gave you a chance to come clean – I tried so hard to let you, to give you an out!" He presses his hand to his chest, the closest he's ever come to admitting heartbreak. "Do you know what it's like to watch that? Watch you all tiptoe around me like I'm a fucking time bomb?"

"Of course I know," Sam bites, furious. "Of course I fucking know. Do you remember Ezekiel? _Gadreel?_ Remember that?"

The elder brother's features soften. "I'm a monster, Sam. A bonafide, claws-and-fangs monster. I've gotta be put down before I hurt anyone else," he says, like he's nothing more than a rabid dog that needs to be taken behind the barn and shot.

Sam is sure he's said these exact words before. "I was _Lucifer_, Dean. I was _Satan_, and you never gave up on me."

"You were _possessed_," he corrects harshly. He takes a step towards his brother and points an accusatory finger towards his own heart. "This, this is _me_."

"It's not you. It's the Mark."

Dean laughs again, his oh-so-merry barricade walls creeping back up, and turns away from him. "I'm not so sure about that."

"The demon blood? That was me. I came back from it, but I never could've done it without you."

Dean remembers all too well his little brother's heartrending withdrawal, the shrieks of anguish ricocheting off the iron walls of Bobby's panic room.

"You never killed anyone," is all he says_._

Sam is at a loss. "We've all done things. We all have. Charlie is _dead_ because of_ me_," he chokes. "There's… there's blood on my hands, too. But In all the bad we've done, there's also been good."

Dean thinks he's probably right, but he can't remember one good thing he's done in the past year.

"It's not enough."

They watch each other. The brotherly bond they once shared is starting to feel like a pair of shackles. A blood-bond forged in other people's blood.

"I'm going to hit the hay," says Dean, giving him his cue to back the hell off.

"I'm not leaving you," Sam replies incredulously. "Not after everything you just said."

He shrugs. He's not afraid of Sam; he doesn't think he could stop him, even if he tried. "Fine, suit yourself. _Babysit_ me."

Sam's cellphone keens one last time, and he wants to destroy it.

"You gonna get that or what?" Dean demands, agitation finally cutting into his tone.

He shakes his head. It's Cas, he's sure, and he can't have that conversation right now, not after everything.

Dean carefully removes the gun and flops back on the bed, like everything's normal, like he actually _sleeps _nowadays, and Sam watches helplessly. He moves to the dresser and picks up the Bible.


	8. May, 2015 - Lebanon, KS (3)

**A/N: Thank you so much to ImpalaLove for reviewing the last chapter! This one is more Sam's POV.**

**Spoilers: 10x22**

* * *

><p><em>Lebanon, Kansas<em>

_May, 2015_

* * *

><p>After…<p>

They burn the body.

.

.

.

Sam sheathes her in white, first. He sits on that bathroom floor, watches the pristine fabric stain red, and then darken where his tears fall. He hoists her out of the tub, lifts her wrists, ankles, then all of her. The wrapping is methodical. Or it would be methodical, if he weren't shaking so badly. His hands quake with each movement, with each sob, with each instance his fingers brush cold flesh. It all hurts. He can't see. His chest and throat burn, like he swallowed a mouthful of acid.

A light is flickering overhead, about to burn out.

He's done this before.

He lifts her one last time, out of the motel room and into the Impala. He's carried her, in the past, but she seems much heavier this time, like anvils are strapped to her feet. Sam is a sturdy man, but his knees nearly buckle as he takes her in his arms. It's not just the (literal) dead weight of her figure – it's more than that. His bones bend and sway, refusing to comply with his brain's instruction. He falls, just kneeling, crying into a sheet wrapped around a corpse. He's not strong enough to shoulder this alone. He's too weak.

_"Please_," he pleads with no one in particular, clutching Charlie to his chest. "I… I need help."

He waits. No one comes, no one answers.

He hears the whirr of a car pass by. Someone might come, someone might answer.

He leaves.

.

.

.

Then: Dean lifts her onto the pyre.

Sam tries to help, tries but…

Flames lick the shroud, turn it to blackened ash. It's morning, but the firelight still dances on their faces. The smell of skin burning is revolting. This is how they start the day off.

He thinks: We should say something, shouldn't we? People say things, at times like these. That's what people do. When someone dies, that's what people do. That's the normal thing. Charlie, she deserves for one of us to say something. She deserved better than this.

He says, "Charlie, you were… the best. You –"

"Shut up. Just shut the fuck up," Dean snarls savagely.

Sam doesn't even flinch. In all honesty, he's glad that he stopped his stupid, stilted speech.

"She deserved better than this," he says aloud.

"You're damn right she did."

"Dean, I –"

He leaves.

.

.

.

In his dreams, Dean laughs before the gunshot.

.

.

.

His brother is covered in blood. There are two bodies in the bunker, and his brother is covered in blood.

_I need help_.

"What happened?"

Dean's teeth are gritted so hard they might splinter.

"Charlie's dead," he spits, as though it explains everything. "Charlie's _dead_."

His vicious stare says: Why? Why? Why? _Because of you._

He doesn't recognize this look, this unbridled hatred. He's never had it directed at him. It's like being run through with a bayonet – a crippling pain through the middle. His fists are clenched, white-knuckling air, trying to keep his grip on reality. Trying to hold on to what they were before this, what both of them used to be. He's trying to hold on to a world where Dean doesn't hate him, and Dean doesn't terrify him.

He rephrases, "What did you do?"

"I killed them," he answers matter-of-factly.

"_Who_?"

"The Stynes."

"How many?"

"All of them."

Sam swallows heavily. Anxiety coils up his stomach and into his esophagus, forming a lump in his throat.

He points to the library. "One of those bodies in there – that kid can't be more than seventeen."

Dean shrugs.

When their dad died, the Impala bore the brunt of Dean's rage. When Bobby died, it was turned on Leviathans; now, it's shifted to other people. Sam paws suddenly at his face, rubbing his eyes bloodshot. He let this happen. He let it get to this point. His voice cracks, "_De-ean_."

His brother stares at him again, eyes searing through him. "They killed Charlie, I killed them. Square," he says, like he's just proven two plus two equals four.

Sam shudders. Would he notice if Dean turned into a monster? Would he notice, or would his eyes have to go black?

"I'm sorry."

"Don't –"

"Dean, I'm _sorry_," he blurts out.

Dean sniffs and shakes his head, gaze fixed on the ceiling. "It doesn't matter," he laughs mirthlessly.

"It matters to me. It matters that you know – I know this is my fault. I know it is. I…" he chokes, unable to go on. "I _know_ this is my fault, and I will carry it with me until I die. But… You have to stop. If you're angry, be angry with _me_."

He takes a step towards him, accepting the challenge. "Don't think I'm not," is his vitriolic response.

Sam looks almost relieved. "Good," he says, "so if you want to kill someone, kill me."

Dean backs down immediately, stricken. Sam hadn't meant to be taken seriously. His eyes narrow.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"What is it? What aren't you telling me?"

_The river shall end at the source._

"Nothing," he insists.

Sam felt this futile, once. Trying to shove his brother's organs back into his body.

"That's it, isn't it?" he murmurs. And more loudly, "That's how you cure the Mark. You've known all along."

Dean looks like he's hurting something awful, like his still-beating heart has been seized from his chest. He goes from aggressive to horrified in ten seconds flat.

Sam laughs, "That's it."

Dean punches the concrete wall and leaves it smeared with his own blood.

.

.

.

He wakes in the middle of the night and wonders if he would let him.

Who is he trying to kid? He would. He would _make _him.


	9. October, 2010 - Lawrence, KS

**A/N: I'll probably post a chapter about the finale, once I can bear it lol. Until then...**

**Spoilers: Season 5**

* * *

><p><em>Lawrence, Kansas<em>

_October, 2010_

* * *

><p>"Sam's… Sam is… S-Sam's dead."<p>

The letters 'John Winchester' flutter in his blurred vision. He blinks hard, feels a tear skirt down his face. It's hot against the brisk autumn chill. The low-dangling sun burns into the back of his head, warming just one more spot on his entire body. There are leaves carpeting the grass, creating a crisp, multicolored barrier between him and the earth his father is buried beneath. The air is fresh, not laden with the stench of decomposing bodies, as it should be.

Dean places a hand on the tombstone to steady himself, and instantly regrets it. It makes the whole thing seem more real, more concrete. It's cold, hard, and unyielding, and would hurt him if he punched it. Much like the man it's dedicated to, come to think of it.

"Adam too," he adds, nodding. Adam, the afterthought. Adam, the child John tried so hard to protect from them – to _hide _from them. Adam was just as much John's son as he was, as Sam was. But only half his brother. _Sam_ was his brother. Sam was everything.

"I… I let them down, Dad. I-I let you down. I'm… I'm so _sorry_." He cracks, then, an errant sob clawing up his throat. It feels like someone is holding a match to his esophagus, and the cold air isn't alleviating anything. He breathes for a second, studies the leaves. The sunlight catches the red, the gold, the auburn. He lists all the ways he's failed his father – failed _everyone_ – and he composes himself. He won't let them down on this account, too. Not after everything.

"Sam's dead," he repeats. This time it comes out clear; it's a fact. It's nothing more than information. "He's just… gone. I couldn't stop it. I couldn't stop any of it. I-I let it happen _again_."

Dean feels a sudden need to get off his knees, so he stands. The leaves crackle below his boots as he shifts his feet back and forth, a little manically. "Maybe you're together down there, maybe-" He stops and looks down the road, choking up again. An eighteen-wheeler rumbles by. Things could have been different.

Head hung low, he goes on. "Maybe I'll be with you soon," he murmurs melancholically.

All the Winchesters reunited in Hell, all except…

His mother's grave catches his gaze, a dark, shiny flicker in the corner of his eye. It's right there, but he can't, he _can't…_

He looks away once more and scratches the back of his neck, suddenly feeling incredibly stupid. Why did he come here? What did this accomplish? Who is he talking to? He feels a tidal wave of embarrassment sweep over him. _Why did he come here?_

"Well. That's that," he mutters, swiping at his face with the back of his hand.

Dean walks back to someone's (_his_) pickup truck, back to a life where this conversation never happened and all his dead relatives are just vague, unspoken concepts. Not flesh rotting in the ground.

This isn't his life, not anymore. He was just pretending it was, just for a little while – it was nothing more than a brief interlude. Now it's time to return to show. And maybe, someday, if he works hard enough, the show will become reality and reality will become the show.

Ben has a Little League game tomorrow. If he leaves now, he can still make it.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I really wish I could write more than angst, I do. I just can't haha. The eighteen-wheeler is a reference to the car wreck Sam, Dean, and John were in at the end of Season 1, in case it was too vague.**


	10. May, 2015 - Superior, NE

**A/N: Thank you so so so much to ImpalaLove and toridw317 for reviewing the last chapter(s)! You guys are the best! I'm sure I'll have more to say about the finale, but for now this is all I've got. This is really mostly an internal monolog from Dean's POV.**

**Spoilers: Season 10 finale**

* * *

><p><em>Superior, Nebraska<em>

_May, 2015_

* * *

><p>"Sammy, close your eyes."<p>

For one brief, sickening moment, Dean thinks he might actually do this.

But only for a moment.

He could never. He could _never_.

The bloodlust is one thing, but _this…_ He loathes himself for even having the ability to fool them. Is this what he's become? Is this how much of a monster he really is? Dean feels sick to his stomach, feels like he's choking on air. His lungs fill up and deflate. Being alive feels like drowning.

Because Sam believes it, Death believes it. _Sam_ believes it – believes that it's right? Believes that he should? That he would?

His younger brother lays down photos of their family at his feet, fanning them out like tarot cards. He's divining the end (for both of them), divining redemption (for him), and Dean stifles the need to puke. Nothing has ever felt more unnatural, more wrong, than this – nothing.

He can barely hear what he's saying. He's blocking it out. He doesn't want to, doesn't want to hear it, because these are what Sam thinks his last words to him are. This is Sam, on his deathbed. This is the last thing he would ever say, and that's something Dean never wants to hear. He's talking about _love_ and _good_ on his knees in front of his would-be executioner brother. His voice is too optimistic, his eyes are too earnest. Dean can't allow it to register. He just can't. Why is that whenever he thinks he's been through everything – endured the worst of it – life hooks him through the shoulder and puts him through the ringer one more time?

His voice is a start to his own ears: "Forgive me." _For everything._

Sam obeys. His eyes flutter closed, tear-sodden lashes wetting his cheekbones. He imagines his brother might revert back to some recognizable version of himself, imagines he might shoot him a cheeky wink, imagines his lips might curl into a smirk. He imagines his cocky, ingenious brother maybe-just-maybe has found a way out of this Catch-22. His imagination runs wild.

Dean doesn't wink. Not this time.

Sam tells himself: of all the lines they've ever drawn and redrawn, this was the one they had faith they would never cross. Because then it would have all been for nothing, wouldn't it? All the lives lost, all the scars hewn into their souls? All the bad they've ever done, they've done to avoid this.

Dean wonders: is this who they really are, when it all comes down to it? Cain and Abel? Michael and Lucifer? Angel and demon? If it is, fine. So be it. After everything, he refuses to believe that anything is truly predestined; he will continue to fight against their inverted polarity, because that's the only thing left worth fighting for anymore.

Sam is different. All of a sudden, it dawns on him. Sam, for all his bitching and moaning, for all his teenage protestations and rebellions, trusts him blindly. He thought the older-younger brother dynamic had faded in the past years, but maybe it's not something that can fade – maybe it will be part of them forever. He always felt it, but this is the first indication in a while that Sam still feels it too. He would let him do this.

Sam's head is raised. Tears are leaking from the corners of his eyes, zigzagging into his temples. Dean can't remember the last time his brother looked so young.

A shutter-roll of memories passes through his brain: Sammy ages zero to thirty-two. He's watched his whole life. He's watched every moment of it, give or take a few months. He changed his diapers, he comforted him when Jess died, he sold his soul to bring him back from the dead. Even with the Mark – even as a _demon_ – how could he? How could he ever? How could he destroy something he spent his whole life trying to nurture? That's a particular type of cruelty, one that's usually reserved for gods.

He's not Sam's father, true enough, but he's had a heavy hand in shaping the man he is now. With a scythe raised over his little brother's neck, he feels less like Cain with Abel, and more like Abraham with Isaac – he's just waiting for divine intervention, waiting for someone to stop him.

Why isn't anyone stopping him?

It's nauseating. No wonder this unleashed such evil thousands of years ago – it's perverse, it's unearthly. How could such pure, dogged devotion be so utterly corrupted?

To him, Sam is sacred. Sam is the most sacred thing in the world, far more sacred than the _'greater good.'_ And nothing will ever change that.

Dean levers the blade into Death's gut, knowing, as he always has, that whatever consequences he has unleashed are the lesser of two evils. He could weather the apocalypse better than the Sam's death at his hands.

His gaunt, statuesque figure withers before their very eyes. The scythe, once rooted in solid flesh, suddenly becomes free and top-heavy as he crumbles around it, into nothingness.

All the while the room is pulsing: _What have you done? What have you done?_

Sam looks astounded, confused, relieved, and horrified all at once. Dean feels a hot-cold tingle of panic and relief rush through his bloodstream with each beat of his heart. He helps him to his feet.

"There… There are just some lines, Sammy," he explains weakly. "Even now, there are just some things I can't do." He sounds almost glad, glad that he's finally found his limit. He genuinely couldn't have done it. Genuinely. It's easy to kill faceless people, but even the Mark distinguishes between Sam and everyone else.

A more unsavory thought creeps into his mind: maybe it's self-preservation. Maybe the Mark knows that if Sam dies, Dean dies too.

He tries not to question it.

What he does remember is that, long ago, John Winchester predicted they might end up here – that Dean be forced to kill Sam. And after all that's happened between now and then, he still couldn't do it. That's a consolation. That means he's not so far from who he used to be.

That means maybe he can find his way back.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: This scene reminded me a bit of the scene in Season 5 when Dean kills Zachariah, which is why I included the winking part. I don't know how familiar you guys are with the Bible, but I don't want to be presumptuous one way or the other, so the reference to Isaac and Abraham is a story from Genesis, in case that didn't make sense. SparkNotes version: God tests Abraham's faith by asking him to sacrifice his son, Isaac, but just before he goes through with it an angel stops him (somewhere, the nuns from my Catholic school days are weeping at this oversimplification, but oh well). So yeah. Tried to end more positively with this one haha. Thanks for reading!**


	11. 2008 - Various Locations

**A/N: Thank you so much to toridw317 and ImpalaLove for reviewing the last chapter. Idk guys, all of a sudden I'm on a roll, so here is yet another chapter. I hope you enjoy it.**

**Spoilers: Season 3**

* * *

><p><em>Various Locations<em>

_2008_

* * *

><p>Sam still has the scar.<p>

A thin, three-inch line running down his vertebrae that burns every time he remembers: _three months._

Sometimes…

Sometimes, he hates him. It's the little moments, when he twists the top off a bottle of beer or hums the tune to _Jukebox Hero, _when he just wants to throttle him for acting normal, and the hate fills him like molten lava. His world is collapsing around him, and Dean doesn't even have the decency to act like it.

He wants him to scream, he wants him to cry, because that's _all _he feels like doing.

Caring and sharing?

No. He knows better than to expect that.

But he just…

He doesn't know. He doesn't truly know what he wants, what he needs. All he knows is it's not this.

Dean catches him standing at the sink, staring at his own face in the mirror and trying to read his brother's into it. Someday, this is all he'll have to remember him by. They don't look very much alike.

Dean squints at him from the doorway, hands on his hips. He looks like he wants to say something, like maybe he knows.

His features relax and he lilts, "Chop chop, space cadet. We gotta go."

Sam crams his toothbrush into his toiletry bag, hands shaking. He fumbles with the toothpaste cap and it rolls towards the drain.

"Y-yeah," he stammers. "Okay."

Sam zips the bag.

On his way out of the room, he scratches absently at the scar that will kill his brother.

.

.

.

.

.

The only time he ever witnesses even a flicker of sadness is in the Impala.

Every so often he'll say something like, "Make sure you change the brake pads every six months," or "The engine is fussy but more often n' not if she's actin' up you just gotta tweak the float valve."

He's teaching him how to take care of the car when he's gone.

Sam couldn't care less about the stupid car – who's going to take care of _him?_

He has so many things to say, so much indignation bubbling up inside him, threatening to explode out of his mouth. He suppresses it to the best of the ability, but sometimes he can't help it.

He spits, "Just shut up about the goddamn car, Dean."

His brother glances at him in surprise, as though he's been physically struck.

"You're going to die," Sam blurts out plainly. "You're gonna die in two months, if we don't find a way to stop it. How the hell can you talk about the Impala?"

Dean drags his forefinger across his pursed lips, eyes fixed steadfastly on the road.

"I'm not leaving anything behind," he says finally. "Nothing but you and the Impala. You're it. You're-" He stops himself and sighs heavily, a fire sparking in the back of his throat.

"We're what?" Sam presses, relentless. "Your _legacy?" _His voice breaks.

Dean refuses to look at him. He doesn't answer.

.

.

.

.

.

There is one emotion that overshadows all the others: anger. He wonders if maybe this is wrong, if maybe it should be sadness or something less… violent.

He's growing to resent his brother, resent him for making him need him so desperately, for making him love him so much. It shouldn't be this way, should it? He should cherish his remaining time with him, right?

In the careless blink of an eye, three months has whittled down to one. A matter of weeks, of days.

Dean acts the same, but every laugh rings hollow, every smile seems strained. His brother doesn't want to die.

Sometimes, Sam just cries. He can't help it. He feels pathetic, like a lost, blubbering child, but he just can't help it. There's nothing he can do – he tried, he tried, but he couldn't-

It's only when Dean can't see him, but he knows he knows. He runs the water. Always. But they both know Sam doesn't take twenty-minute showers.

How could he do this to him? How could he bring him back and make him live with this?

Sam was born with a volatile temper. But he can't hurt Dean (_fragile_ Dean), so he savages anything else he can get his hands on, animate or inanimate. It doesn't make him feel any better. He doesn't really expect that it would, but every monster he kills leaves him feeling emptier than before. Every attempt at feeling better is a failure. He feels like he's trapped inside a well, clawing at the slick walls. Every time he finds a foothold, he slides back down. And now he's sitting in a puddle at the bottom, fingernails bloody and no closer to the top.

He's watched his brother die every day for a month straight. He should be numbed to it by now. But he's not numbed to it. He's maybe a little bit insane, but he's sure as hell not numb.

Dean has noticed this turn towards manic.

In a diner in Reno, he says, "It'll be okay, y'know. You'll be all right."

Sam glares at him furiously from over the laminated menu.

The sun is filtering in from the floor-length window next to him, illuminating a glistening in Dean's trademark green eyes that he might not have otherwise noticed.

He insists, "You will."

Sam swallows carefully. His eyes flit down to the table as he formulates a response.

"I know you're mad," says Dean. "And I guess I don't really blame you. I sure as hell would be too. But you'll be all right. You'll be better off than I was-"

Sam starts, "How can you-"

"Let me finish," he interrupts. "Please. I know you will be. That's why I did it. I know you've been wondering, and that's why. Without you, without Dad, I'm not-I'm not anything… But you – you can have a normal life. You always said you wanted to get out of this. Now you can."

Sam's rage cools to icy sorrow in a millisecond. His eyebrows merge as he whines, "Dean, _please_ tell me you don't think that little of yourself."

His lips flicker into a semblance of a smirk, but this time he doesn't bother to disguise the melancholy behind it.

The scar on Sam's back is aching. He demands, "How can I ever have a normal life knowing you died so I could live it? How can I live knowing that? How can I ever look at myself in the mirror again, knowing that you're not here because I am, that you're dead because of me?"

"It's not like that," he chastises. "I made my own choices."

Sam scoffs incredulously, throwing down the menu.

"That's _exactly _what it's like."

"You'll be all right," he repeats. It's starting to become a chant, a mantra. "You'll be fine. You're..."

Before he can finish, the waitress comes over with a megawatt smile. To Sam, she's nothing more than a reminder that no one else is living in the same Hell he is, that the world is oblivious to the well he's trapped in. Her eyes are too bright, her voice is too cheery. She thinks they're just a couple of friends ('_brothers, maybe_,' she muses to Kelly when describing the two handsome guys at table seven) grabbing a bite to eat.

Dean grins back at her. He orders a cheeseburger, and Sam can't help but think he's one meal closer to ordering his last.

.

.

.

.

.

It's the middle of the night. One week to go.

Sam wakes up at 3 AM, migraine blaring, ripping through his brain like a chainsaw.

He sits up, tries to blink away the pins and needles poking at the backs of his eyeballs. He massages his temples and eye sockets for one, two, three, four and then out of nowhere he his hands are wet and he realizes he's crying. And it hits him like a flood, bursting out of him, and he doesn't even care that the water isn't running.

Dean wakes up in a haze of confusion and concern, and sees his little brother hunched over the edge of the bed with his face in his hands.

"Sammy…"

He reaches his hand towards him in the dark, but Sam jerks away.

"Don't," he hisses. "Don't touch me."

"_Sam_," he pleads, a look of profound hurt spread out across his face.

"How could you do this? How could you do this to me?"

"Sammy, you know it's not like that," he chokes. "You have to be strong."

It's the middle of the night, and Sam feels overtired and out of control. _One week to go_.

He's not himself, but this is a conversation that he could only ever have when he's not himself.

"I can't do this without you. I can't."

"You… You have to."

His hand falls on his shoulder, and he moves to sit beside him. This time, Sam doesn't pull away.

"I can't. I don't want to."

"I know, but you have to," he reiterates sadly, in a tone that seems to indicate it's okay if he doesn't want to. His hand moves to the center of his spine, a radiating heat right over the scar. "You'll be all right."

He sinks into his older brother, and Dean pats him on the back, slowly, patiently, and methodically. Dean is dry-eyed, like a martyr. They could be five and nine years old again. They might as well be.

A fleeting thought crosses both of their minds: _What if Mom and Dad could see us now?_

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I know NOTHING about cars, so if that bit about the Impala didn't make sense I apologize haha. Also, I've been working on another chapter of 'Life in the Fast Lane' for like a decade (it's long af), so with any luck I can finish that up soon and post something more plot-centric. I hope you guys aren't sick of me by now lol.**


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